Some of the most recognized men on Wall Street are making money by lying to you.

It’s a game that’s been going on for a long time. Let me start with an example from the late 19th century…

Deadwood was an acclaimed Western series that ran on HBO from 2004–2006.

The series was set in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, during the Black Hills Gold Rush of the late 1870s.

As you can imagine, the show was full of shootouts, filthy language, and quite a few sex scenes… Certainly not a show you’d want to watch with your kids.

But there’s an episode of Deadwood that holds a valuable lesson for investors…

During the Dakota gold rush, regular folks who got in early made fortunes. These weren’t mining magnates or industrialists. Much like today’s investors, they were ordinary speculators pouncing on an opportunity.

What happened to all those early-stage prospectors?

In the fictionalized Deadwood version, wealthy miner George Hearst (father of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst), swindled them out of their mining shares.

This wasn’t too far from the truth. According to rumors at the time, Hearst used murder, intimidation, and misinformation to force people to sell their claims. He even purchased newspapers in the town to influence public opinion.

In a bid to buy in cheap, Hearst’s agents started to float rumors the government would seize all land in the town. Prospectors believed the rumors – and sold their mining stakes for pennies to Hearst’s agents.

It’s probably one of the first instances of “fake news” in the markets. And it worked…

Hearst and his partners bought the biggest mine in the region – Homestake – for a bargain-basement price of $70,000 ($1.7 million in today’s dollars).

Homestake would become the richest gold mine in U.S. history. From 1876 to 2002, the mine produced 44 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver.

At today’s prices, that’s a combined $76.7 billion in precious metals.

I’m seeing similar “fake news” stories stealing money from everyday investors in today’s markets.

Who’s Behind the Fake News?

The markets are awash in fake information…

One week, a talking head says he’s selling. The next week, we find out he’s buying. These guys are so convincing, it’s almost impossible for the average investor to tell what’s real and what’s fake.

Action from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has had little impact… even after it’s fined dozens of big Wall Street firms billions of dollars for putting out “fake news” over the years. For example:

  • In 2003, as part of a global settlement by 10 firms, Goldman Sachs paid $110 million for alleged conflicts of interest. The SEC found it issued research reports that provided no sound basis for evaluating facts, along with exaggerated or unwarranted claims.

  • In 2015, two JPMorgan wealth management subsidiaries agreed to pay $267 million and admit wrongdoing. According to the SEC, they failed to disclose that certain managed mutual funds purchased for clients would generate less revenue than other funds.

  • And just last month, Morningstar agreed to pay $3.5 million for allegedly violating a conflict of interest rule. The rule separated credit ratings and analysis from sales and marketing.

As you can see, Wall Street’s “reports” often contain fake information. And the fines are just a slap on the wrist for these multibillion-dollar firms. It’s “the price of doing business.”

But this is just the tip of the iceberg…

Fake Numbers… Fake News… Fake Charts…

If you’ve been watching Wall Street as long as I’ve been, then you know to not watch what they say, but what they do.

That includes looking at stock charts…

I’ve discovered the charts you’re using to make your stock trades are missing 40% of the actual trades and volume occurring in the stock. This is a new level of fake news I only just discovered. It has you making decisions on stocks with distorted data.

I don’t have enough room in this article to get into all the details, but I do want to tell you more… That’s why I want you to join me on Thursday, June 25, at 8 p.m. ET, so I can prove to you how “fake news” has been wrecking your trading results.

More importantly, I’ll show you details about a two-minute trade you can run that has made an average of $19,740 every time we tested it. It’s based on having access to a stream of data little used by individual investors.

This data acts like a “truth detector,” restoring the truth to the charts you rely on and stripping away the financial lies being told to you by Wall Street and the media.

So join me during my free event on Thursday, at 8 p.m., and I’ll walk you through how it all works.

Let the Game Come to You!

Teeka Tiwari
Editor, Palm Beach Daily